Does your gender influence health outcomes?
In this episode of Women Disrupting Tech, Hanneke Takkenberg shares her journey from cardiac surgeon to DEI advocate, revealing how gender biases in medicine affect both careers and patient outcomes.
Key Takeaways from the episode
By listening to our conversation, you’ll learn about a wide range of topics, including:
🧑🏻⚕️ The Gender Health Gap: Women’s health has historically been overlooked in medical research, leading to underdiagnosis, ineffective treatments, and more side effects.
🚻 Medical Bias & Research Gaps: Until recently, clinical trials primarily focused on men—even lab rats were male. This has led to critical blind spots in healthcare.
🤖 AI & Medicine: AI and robotics in medicine must start unbiased. Fixing bias in AI will improve healthcare for everyone.
🙋🏻♀️ Leadership & Systemic Change: Despite 70% of doctors being women, leadership remains male-dominated. Closing the health gap is a $1T economic opportunity.
🙋🏻♂️ Men Must Be Part of the Solution: Since men historically built the current systems and control resources, their involvement is essential for real change.
Tune in for a powerful conversation on breaking barriers in healthcare and leadership on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or hit play below.
Breaking Barriers in Medicine And Leadership with Hanneke Takkenberg | Ep. 87 – Women Disrupting Tech
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- Key Takeaways from the episode
- Want to help build inclusive technology? Change starts here!
- The Magic in This Episode 🪄
- The Two Zero-Cost Ways to Support Women Disrupting Tech
- What Stood Out to Me
- About Hanneke Takkenberg
- About Erasmus Center for Women and Organizations
- About Rotterdam School of Management
- Your Opinion Matters!
- What’s coming up?
- More episodes like this?
The Magic in This Episode 🪄
“My ambition is to close the health gap between men and women.”
Did you know that all clinical research in healthcare has traditionally taken the man as the starting point? To the point that even the rats used for testing were male?
As a result, Women are diagnosed later, treated differently, and often dismissed when they report symptoms. Even today, medical research is overwhelmingly based on men.
In Episode 87: Breaking Barriers in Medicine And Leadership, Hanneke Takkenberg reveals:
💡 How gender bias in healthcare puts women at risk
📊 Why closing the health gap would boost the economy by billions
🤖 How AI and medical data must evolve to serve everyone
🌍 Why social innovation is just as crucial as technological breakthroughs
🎧 Ready to challenge the status quo and create a healthcare system that truly works for all? Click the button below to tune in on Spotify.
The Two Zero-Cost Ways to Support Women Disrupting Tech
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What Stood Out to Me
I don’t know about you, but I’m always happy to hear from women who shape their own destiny. And Hanneke is an inspiring role model.
In 2006, she wrote an angry email to the board of the Erasmus MC. She has just learned that women doctors were making less money than men.
This email gave her the opportunity to change things for the better. First helping to create policies around diversity, later as a Chief Diversity Officer at Erasmus MC and currently as a Professor in Management Education focusing on Women in Business.
What I also find magical is that Hanneke is the first to explicitly say that men need to be involved because they’ve built the systems we use now; they have the power and money to change things.
I really believe that the only way to change the current systems and biases is by fostering an inclusive collaboration. Otherwise, we simply cannot unlock the One Trillion Dollar opportunity that comes with closing the health gap between men and women.
Hanneke underscores this by saying that she thinks “that focus on Women’s health will also benefit men’s health.”
🎧 Ready to explore how active role models can shape diversity in tech? Tune in to the episode on Apple Podcasts using the button below.
Or click the image with the quote to watch the episode on YouTube.
“Technical innovation is beautiful, but it won’t work if there is no social innovation.”.
Prof. Hanneke Takkenberg
About Hanneke Takkenberg
Hanneke Takkenberg is a Professor of Management Education focusing on Women in Business at the Rotterdam School of Management (RSM). She is also the Executive Director of the Erasmus Centre for Women and Organisations (ECWO) at RSM.
And, since 2012, she has been Professor of Clinical Decision Making in Cardio-Thoracic Interventions at Erasmus University Medical Center (MC). You can connect with her on LinkedIn.
This journey continues on 7 March 2025, when she’ll open a Women’s Health Innovation Center to drive medical research and innovations that work for women.
About Erasmus Center for Women and Organizations
Erasmus Centre for Women and Organisations (ECWO) strives for settings where everyone feels valued, respected and supported. They conduct research and produce evidence-led educational programs, events, coaching, advocacy, and advisory services. By doing so, they help organizations create a sense of belonging for everyone within organizations through diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), anchored in social safety.
You can learn more about their programs and about the Diana Bevelander Prize on their website and on LinkedIn.
About Rotterdam School of Management
Rotterdam School of Management, part of Erasmus University Rotterdam, is one of Europe’s top-ranked business schools. Their programs help students, academics and people in business become a force for positive change. To learn more, visit their website and follow RSM on LinkedIn.
Your Opinion Matters!
What do you think is the biggest barrier to gender equality in healthcare? Is it the biases? The lack of women in leadership? Or something else altogether? Let me know what you think in the comments.
And if you would like to suggest a guest or a theme for the podcast, please let me know via email or send a DM on LinkedIn.
What’s coming up?
I’m proud to say that we have some amazing episodes coming your way in the next few weeks.
In episode 88, Dieuwertje Drexhage comes on to share how her company, Layco Medical, is designing for sustainability and equality in childbirth. She recently secured a €55k investment at the ‘Her Capital Connection Event,’ and it’s a special episode for sure.
The episode after that is as much a surprise for you as it is for me. I can promise you that it will be different from the ones you’ve listened to before.
So, stay tuned for more inspiring stories on Women Disrupting Tech! And if you want to be the first to learn about new episodes, subscribe to updates.
Until we meet again in the next episode, keep being awesome.
More episodes like this?
If you want to listen to other episodes on medicine or leadership, you can check out the following three episodes:
– In episode 82, Karim El Oteify provides a systemic approach to implementing diversity.
– In episode 56, we hear how Jacquline Kazmaier‘s Autoscriber is helping doctors prevent burnout and enhance patient care.
– In episode 31, Ingrid Tappin shares her wisdom as a frontrunner about how we can champion DEI.
Women Disrupting Tech | The Podcast 
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